Oregon lawmakers admit they have little control over state’s major tourism agency’s $95 million budget

By JAMES NEFF/Oregon Journalism Project

SALEM — The exercise can be frustrating. 

Every two years, Oregon’s semi-independent state agencies — Travel Oregon and more than a dozen others — undergo financial review by the nonpartisan Legislative Fiscal Office, which then shares a report with lawmakers.  

But among those agencies, Travel Oregon, with a $95 million biennial budget, as well as the much smaller Oregon Wine Board enjoy a special status. Their budgets are not subject to approval or modification by the Legislature.   

At a hearing this week about the Legislative Fiscal Office’s new semi-independent agencies report, Rep. David Gomberg, D-Otis, questioned the office’s staffers about what he jokingly referred to as the “more independent” semi-independent agencies: “If they’re doing something the Legislature doesn’t like, what authority do we have?” 

The answer, in so many words, was: You have to pass a new law giving you that oversight. 

Lawmakers’ limited authority of such quasi-public agencies—all of which depend on a tax of some sort granted to them by the Legislature and the governor—has come into sharp focus since an Oregon Journalism Project investigation of Travel Oregon detailed operational dysfunction and the outsized pay of its decades-long chief executive officer Todd Davidson. Last year, his total compensation came to $477,000. 

Travel Oregon, also known as the Oregon Tourism Commission, is funded by a statewide 1.5% tax on hotel stays. The governor appoints members to its oversight board of commissioners, who are then approved by the state Senate. 

The Oregon Journalism Project asked Gov. Tina Kotek whether she believed Travel Oregon had too much autonomy and whether its CEO was paid appropriately. A spokesperson replied by email:  “Under Oregon law, Travel Oregon (in statute as the Oregon Travel Commission) has a board that is responsible for determining the compensation package for the executive director. It would be sensible that any planned search for a new director should consider a salary that is comparably competitive in order to recruit the best candidates.”

Davidson’s salary is far higher than that earned by other state agency directors who run vastly larger, essential service operations, such as the Oregon Department of Transportation and the Department of Human Services. 

While the governor’s office ducked the matter of autonomy, a fellow Democrat was less hesitant.  Gomberg, whose district includes Lincoln County on the Oregon coast that benefits from streams of tourists, said he’d like “to bring all of these agencies under the budgeting process” because there is “no consistency in our statutes.” 

He cites the oddity of requiring a tiny licensing board run on $1 million a year in public monies to go through the multistep, weekslong process and public hearing entailed in “a legislatively approved budget. Travel Oregon does not. Again, I’m not saying there is evidence of malfeasance. This is about accountability and transparency.”

Although Davidson, 65, has announced his retirement, he isn’t going anywhere soon. Lucinda DiNovo, chair of Travel Oregon’s board of commissioners, has told the agency’s 73 employees that Davidson would retire June 30 but stay on as CEO at the commissioners’ request for no more than one year as they recruit and hire a successor.  

“The governor’s office has been informed and is supportive in these discussions,” DiNovo wrote, “and will continue to play a role in support of the Commission throughout this transition process.” 

• James Neff can be reached at jneff@oregonjournalismproject.org